In recent years, a 'more-than-human' turn in environmental humanities, social sciences and science studies has linked a range of concerns about anthropogenic climate change, sustainability, post-humanism, re-wilding, de-growth, and hybrids. The scope of these considerations is wide and interdisciplinary, and opens new questions for scholars and practitioners interested in the built environment —about non-humans as architectural subjects, nature/society boundaries, questions of instrumentality and the assembled nature of (design) agency—particularly in light of ecological crises and climate change.
This interdisciplinary panel discussion brings scholars, designers and artists together to reflect on the historical roles (expected and unexpected) of non-human others in crafting urban and regional landscapes, and the politics, biopolitics and aesthetics of more-than-human interactions. Participants will foreground their work on, with or alongside non-humans in blurred 'nature-culture borderlands', to rethink the messy politics of expertise, the assemblage of agency, and explore the unforeseen spaces that design and planning entail.
Organized by Nida Rehman, Ann Kalla Assistant Professor, School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University. For further inquiries please contact nrehman@andrew.cmu.edu.
Date: Sunday, 30 April 2017
Time: 1:00-3:00pm
Venue: Center for Sustainable Landscapes, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Pittsburgh, PA
Event is free and open to the public
RSVP Here
Panel:
Joyce Hwang, Living Among Pests
Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, University of Buffalo
Rachel Strickland, The Social Lives of Urban Trees: An Experimental Video Project
Independent documentary filmmaker, architect, and time-based media designer
John Soluri, Birth Places and Biosecurity in Patagonia
Associate Professor, Department of History, Carnegie Mellon University
Romita Ray, Spatializing the Tea Plant
Associate Professor, Art History and Chair, Department of Art & Music Histories, Syracuse University
Directions to Center for Sustainable Landscapes & Parking:
The CSL sits behind Phipps Conservatory and down the hill. If you are coming across the bridge from the Oakland area/Carnegie Library, as soon as you get across the bridge you will make a right turn by the Christopher Columbus statue. Follow that service road the entire way down the sloping hill; you may also walk down this road if on foot. Do not turn up the steep driveway; just keep going down this road. The CSL will appear on your left. If you are driving, you may park for free in any of the parking spots you see near and around the CSL building.
You will enter the building on the first floor at the far end of the building, and must stop at the security desk to check in. Let the security guard know you are here with CMU School of Architecture for an event in the CSL Classroom.